It all comes down to application. Across the entire playing group.
If any of Tom Barrass, Tom Cole, Liam Duggan or Will Schofield were available as free agents, we’d be saying neither makes our backline any better than it already is.
If any of Mark Hutchings, Chris Masten, Jack Redden or Dom Sheed were free agents, we’d laugh and say we’d prefer Mitch Wallis.
If any of Jamie Cripps, Lewis Jetta, Marc LeCras, Willie Rioli, Liam Ryan, Daniel Venables were free agents, we wouldn’t want any of them as they don’t make our forward line any better.
If any of Scott Lycett or Nathan Vardy were free agents, we prefer to hang on to McKernan instead.
Yet…
West Coast won a premiership with more than half a team of players that wouldn’t even fit into our best 22.
We have the talent on our list, they just need to apply themselves and never give in.
This may be true historically (I’m just checking) but soon 8th spot will be allocated to Gil’s wildcard entry and top spot will awarded by rotation to the loser clubs.
We have learned that we must be better than the opposition and bias umpiring.
We’ve learned to except the fact the umpires are going to try an influence the game against us. We need to be better than that. We need to be better than the 22 opposition players and 3 central umpires.
Umpiring is not an excuse to losing the game. We showed this when we destroyed West Coast.
Incumbency and ‘no changes for mine’ selection policy is overrated. Balllsack was never a suitable matchup for Kennedy & pies should’ve trusted Reid to play one good game given he has been fit for a few weeks.